At Virgin Active, we work with an amazing panel of experts who are leaders in their fields to bring you the very best when it comes to health and fitness. This Women’s month, we’ll be bringing you loads of great content from the fierce females on the panel. Meet them now and keep an eye on our channels for great content related to women’s health and wellness.
Dr Phathokuhle Zondi – Sports and Exercise Medicine (SEM) Physician
Dr Zondi is a Sports and Exercise Medicine (SEM) Physician experienced in clinical sports medicine, executive management, and leadership. Her life mission is to use sport/physical activity as a tool for socioeconomic development and as a platform that facilitates transformation, equity and inclusion. She’s not just a physician and strategist in high-performance sport, but also an avid athlete who loves sport and wants to use it to change the world.
Her clinical expertise lies in management and prevention of injury and illness in athletes and she has a keen interest in women’s health. She completed her undergraduate medical degree at the University of Cape Town and later an MSc in Sports Medicine and MBA at the University of Pretoria’s Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS). In 2016, she was appointed as CEO of the Sports Science Institute of SA (SSISA) where she held the reigns for 4 years before establishing her own consulting company. She is the current Chairperson of the Medical Advisory Commission for the South African Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC), a Director of The Sharks (Pty) Ltd and the South African Institute for Drug Free Sports (SAIDS). She is also a member and past President of the South African Sports Medicine Association, and an Associate Editor of the British Journal of Sports Medicine. In 2021, she served as Chief Medical Officer for Team South Africa at the Tokyo Olympic Games.
She is working to leave a legacy that will inspire her two daughters to be purposeful, dynamic and happy.
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Dr Eileen Africa – Sports Scientist & Kinderkineticist
Dr Eileen Africa is the founder of Stellenbosch Kinderkinetics, based in the Western Cape. She received her PhD in Sport Science in 2006 from Stellenbosch University and began her lecturing career the following year. Her research spans the field of pediatric exercise science which includes early childhood development and overall health and physical activity for all children.
In 2010, she initiated the Honours Kinderkinetics programme in the Department of Sport Science at Stellenbosch University and qualified as a Kinderkineticist later that year. She is currently the coordinator of the Kinderkinetics programme at Stellenbosch University and serves on the South African Professional Institute for Kinderkinetics. Kinderkinetics aims to holistically develop children (0-13 years old) by stimulating, remedying and promoting specific motor skills and physical development, through physical activity.
The Kinderkinetics team are integral to the development of scientifically based programmes and activities designed for Virgin Active kids attending movement classes at Club-V and Club-V Max facilities.
She has a passion for instilling an appreciation for movement as a way of life for children, by promoting active lifestyles from a young age, with a focus on the positive socio-cognitive benefits that movement has in all aspects of their lives.
Kim Hofmann – Registered Dietician
A Registered Dietician with a BSc Medical (Honours) in Nutrition and Dietetics and a BSc (Honours) Psychology, Kim’s passion lies in combining her psychological studies with nutrition and food. She works with a wide range of people, including; those seeking to lose weight to those with special medical needs (sports, allergies, eating disorders, hypertension, diabetes, cholesterol). She is dedicated to delivering nutrition information that is accurate, practical and easy to follow, with a specialised interest in behavioural shifts beyond weight loss.
Her passion lies in working with people that want to lose weight, but can’t seem to keep it off because of the psychological clutter that they live in. She believes that to be well balanced, people need to look at nutrition, exercise, stress (or quietness), in tandem with emotions and thoughts. In her personal capacity, Kim lectures on nutrition at various institutes, give talks at and for wellness days, write articles/snippets for papers and magazines, is an advisory dietician for several exercise and food based initiatives, and has served on the ADSA WC committee as Chairperson for 4 years.